I'm hoping my blog doesn't become the place where I elaborate on my most recent Facebook status, but as I've probably got a few more posts before a pattern can be said to have been established, I'm going to keep doing that — worst case scenario, we can replace the phrase "status update" with the far more buzz-worthy "blog-preview" > I thought that would sound more exciting (I apologize for this).
Today, while at Starbucks, I noticed at least two things (probably more, but that's not important): the Starbucks was full of women (awesome), and not one of their conversations could be said to have passed the Bechdel test.
For those who are unaware, the Bechdel test is a short-cut to feminist media criticism, introduced in the comic Dykes to Watch Out For, wherein a text is said to have failed if at no point is there a scene in which two women discuss something other than a man/relationship. I'm paraphrasing, because my internet isn't working, and I may not remember to check after I've fixed it. Feel free to Google it.
As I stood waiting for my fancy coffee-drink (espresso + hot water), I overheard a young woman explain to her friends that the worst thing about her boyfriend is how fast his beard grows (I've heard Anderson Cooper has this same problem — HD cameras force him to shave several times a day); after finding a seat on the other side of a display case, I was privy to another group's conversation (slightly older women), which was a sort of back-and-forth about whether someone (I'll call her Athena) should ask her boyfriend (Ronaldo) to be more something or other (tall... probably tall); and while considering the oddity of being set in this sort of misogynistic re-imagining of the local Starbucks, I noticed a pair of teenage-girls dash to some leather chairs (they dashed — it was weird), throw themselves into them (somehow balancing their fancy whipped-drinks), and debate feverishly as to which of the attractive young men in their circle of friends to invite to whatever sort of party teenage girls throw on a Saturday night (for which, I have no frame of reference).
It struck me that there is a divergence between our aspirations and our reality.
And, I don't mean to single out the ladies. I have similarly found reason to doubt any of the following claims, which I would very much prefer to accept as invariably true:
— People are kind, generous, and worthy of respect and admiration.
— It is better to have integrity than to be terrible.
— Life is enriched by knowledge.
— Existential insignificance does not diminish human worth.
— Murder is wrong.
— Looking for love is worth all the god-damned rejection.
These are the first examples that come to mind, but feel free to insert any of your own cherished beliefs that seem occasionally challenged by reality — not to say those delusional beliefs that are clearly wrong, but those that are almost certainly true, but vulnerable to cynical obfuscation.
It's also probably worth pointing out that Bechdel's test is not, presumably, about making films more realistic so much as making them less shallow/conventional in their presentation of women, and that similar tests could be constructed wherein films are said to be failures if they don't show their protagonists having emotional responses to shooting bad-guys — regardless of whether or not a real person might feel one way or another about murder, someone (particularly someone who feels film heroes are too sociopathic) might suggest a litmus test for emotional detachment (something more useful than the MPAA, I might add).
But I'm worried about this.
Television, movies, books, and to a lesser extent, my personal experiences have lead me to believe most everything I believe. Our minds construct reality based on narratives we present to ourselves, and ultimately, the narratives we're presented (in television, movies, books, and experience) determine what sort of narratives we're likely to construct about our reality. Somewhere in this is a strong argument against learning from history.
I expect a lot from people; as such, I'm constantly disappointed (not actually... I am, but not in the sense that I'm wandering around thinking everyone is useless and terrible, I mean more that I'm disappointed by my experience of people — as in the case of meeting a spectacular author only to find neither of us have anything that interesting to say to one another > this happens to me a lot).
And, I don't know how much of this is physical limitation (fiction lets us slip into people's interiority, which is probably why people in books seem to have substance while people in Starbucks seem to suck) and how much is due to my expectations being radically unrealistic — I envision a world in which no one watches the Jersey Shore, wherein no one can figure out why Ke$ha is a thing, and made up of deeply sensitive, intelligent individuals who suspect the worst of charming, wealthy people.
Does it bother me that as I drank my coffee, my thoughts were essentially, if these people were fictional, their existence would be trashy, shallow, and not worth watching, or is it that, because they're not fictional, I feel the need to redeem them (which seems, at the very least, insulting)? And how is this all that different from my walking into a grocery store and thinking these people aren't as attractive as the ones on television?
My tenuous grasp of feminism has left me feeling petty and unsatisfied.
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